Following the development, the stock rose 13.69 per cent to hit a high of Rs 1,047 on BSE.
The Defence Ministry in a statement said: “The Cabinet has approved procurement of 73 LCA Tejas Mk-1A fighter aircraft and 10 LCA Tejas Mk-1 trainer aircraft at the cost of Rs 45,696 crore along with design and development of infrastructure sanctions worth Rs 1,202 crore.”
The Mk-1A variant of Light Combat Aircraft is an indigenously designed, developed and manufactured state-of-the-art modern 4+ generation fighter aircraft. This aircraft is equipped with critical operational capabilities of Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar, Beyond Visual Range (BVR) missile, Electronic Warfare (EW) Suite and Air to Air Refuelling (AAR) would be a potent platform to meet the operational requirements of Indian Air Force, IAF.
The indigenous content of LCA-Tejas is 50 per cent in the Mk1A variant which will be enhanced to 60 per cent.
Indian Air Force had three years ago issued an initial tender for procurement of 83 Tejas aircraft, a four-and-half generation combat jet which is manufactured by the state-run aerospace behemoth Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).
The IAF has already inducted a batch of Tejas aircraft as part of its initial order of 40 jets.
The Tejas Mk-1A will be equipped with active electronically scanned array radar, beyond visual range missile, electronic warfare suite and air-to-air refuelling and would be a potent platform to meet the operational requirements of the IAF, officials said.
The ministry said the government has also approved infrastructure development by IAF under the project to enable it to handle repairs and servicing at its base depots so that the turnaround time of the aircraft could be reduced and their availability can be increased for “operational exploitation”.
